Mainely Change

Friday, April 17, 2015

Welcome! Beginning in April 2015, I am offering Resume Critiques to help you promote yourself! Your resume is one of the most important documents you'll ever have. After all, it's the key to introducing yourself to prospective employers so that you can get the job you want, and the salary you want, for a happier, more fulfilling life. For more information about my services, just shoot me a message at promoteyourselfnow@yahoo.com. And let's get started on promoting you so you can land the job you've been seeking!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

On Wednesday, April 25th, at the
Falmouth Memorial Library, I'll be presenting Getting Back to Work, a workshop
designed for women and men who wish to re-enter the workforce after time spent
out of the job market. My workshop will include tips on writing resumes and cover
letters, interviewing, searching for work online, networking online and in
person, and developing confidence to land your dream job. Anyone who is currently
conducting a job search or contemplating starting one is invited to attend.

I used to critique resumes on a monthly basis at the library. As I met with people to discuss
their resumes, I found that the majority of people who sought my advice were
women returning to work after time spent raising children. Hearing their
stories inspired me to create this workshop. With
unemployment currently standing at about 8% in Maine, the competition for every
new job posting is fierce. We all need to take advantage of as many practical
tools and resources as we can to ensure job search success.

Detials: Getting Back to Work will be
presented on Wednesday, April 25, 2012, from noon to 2:30 p.m. at the Falmouth
Memorial Library, 5 Lunt Rd., Falmouth, Maine. For more information, contact
the library at 781-2351 or leave a comment below.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Stress. We’ve all felt it. You know it by its symptoms. Perhaps it’s a tightening in your chest, or a painful migraine headache. But what is stress, and what can you do about it?

Stress is simply your perception of the space between where you are and where you want to be. If you have overdue bills that you cannot pay, your thoughts about them prompt you to feel stress. If your child is doing poorly in school, your thoughts about how he’s doing lead to feelings of stress. Stress is an indicator of the gap that separates you from what you want.

If you turn your attention to things unwanted and keep it there for a long period of time, your feelings of stress will become prolonged. Eventually, your habit of thinking will cause your body and mind so much stress that you will become ill, either physically or emotionally or both.

Is stress bad? Not necessarily. However, stress is a part of life. It’s what gives you that prick of excitement when you’re working on a project with a looming deadline or running the last few miles of a marathon. If your life were truly free of stress, you’d feel bored and enervated. You’d feel like a limp noodle, and you wouldn’t experience much joy.

So what is the best way to approach stress? What can we do to cope with feelings of stress? My belief is that we need to make it a habit to focus not on that which we don’t want in our lives, but on what makes us happy. Ask yourself what you want from life, and then put your attention there more often than on the negative. Be cognizant of where your focus is during the day. Do you find yourself complaining about people, places, and things? Are you unhappy with your situation, whether at home or at work? These negative thoughts will cause you stress. And rather than helping you improve your life, your thoughts can actually slow down the manifestations that you want. In a very real sense, you get to choose how much stress you experience, based on your choices about what to focus on.

Stress will never go away entirely. There will always be unwanted situations, events, and people in your life – it’s just the way the Universe works. But once you develop a better habit of choosing to focus on the positive rather than the negative, your feelings of stress will diminish. And you’ll find yourself feeling healthier, happier, and more at peace with your world.

This workshop is designed to take you beyond The Secret and clearly explain the reason that your attitude influences your life. It’s not just some feel-good, New Age mumbo jumbo; the Law of Attraction exists because we live in an energy-based universe. But you don’t have to be a quantum physicist to understand how energy works. In clear, simple language, Elizabeth will explain the basics of the Law of Attraction. More importantly, she’ll give you practical advice that you can use every day to get more of what you want out of life.

Elizabeth T. Schoch is a communications professional who has been studying the Law of Attraction since 1997. A knowledgeable and inspiring speaker, her goal is to simplify the Law of Attraction so that it is understood by those who are seeking this information.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Last time, we talked about what should always be included in your resume. This time, we’ll take a look at what you should never include in it.

Keep It ProfessionalYour resume should be designed to present the details about your professional self. The key word here is professional. Your resume is not the place for personal information, other than your address, phone number, and email address. Never include your birth date, marital status, or hobbies on your resume. You should also omit any references to religious or political affiliations. These things are not relevant to the prospective employer’s evaluation of you. Also, be very careful about including your blog. If it is strictly personal, it’s probably not a good idea to include the link on your resume.

Keep It RelevantA resume is not an autobiography. You do not need to include every job you’ve ever had or every school you’ve ever attended. Only include the information that will promote your skills in the best possible light. This includes employment dates. If you have had gaps in your employment for one reason or another, consider choosing a resume format that omits dates. Make sure that everything on your resume is relevant to the position you are seeking.

Keep References In Their PlaceIt’s great that you’ve got enthusiastic references, but you don’t need to list them on your resume. Create a separate reference sheet you can take with you to the interview. That old line “references available upon request” is not needed. Instead, use that space to sell your skills.

Keep Your Photo OffIn most cases, a resume should not include your photograph. There are exceptions to this rule. For instance, if you’re applying for a position in the hospitality or performing arts fields, the job posting may include a request for your photo. A good rule of thumb is don’t supply a photograph unless you’ve been asked for one. Save your smiling face for presentation at the interview. It is fine, however, to put your photo on your LinkedIn profile and include your LinkedIn URL on your resume.

Keep It CleanI can’t stress this enough: Your resume must be error-free! No typos, no grammatical mistakes, no misspellings. It pays to have at least two other people proofread your resume before you send it out.

By paying careful attention to what you put in your resume and what you leave out, you’ll have a much better chance of creating a hard-working resume that’ll help you land your desired job!

Monday, January 3, 2011

When it comes to writing a resume, the most basic considerations are what to put in it and what to leave out. Obviously, you’ll include your name, address, and phone number. And you’ll probably remember to add your email address to your contact info. But if you have a website or blog, you may also want to include those URLs. (This will depend on what the content is. If your blog is highly personal and not relevant to your professional life, you’ll probably want to skip it.)

Recently, I’ve noticed that some job seekers are including the URL of their LinkedIn profile. Depending on what your profile looks like and how relevant it is to the position you’re applying for, it may not be a bad idea to include your LinkedIn info at the top of your resume. This is especially true if you’ve carefully crafted your profile and have received glowing recommendations from those who know your work.

Some other basics for every resume include the names of the companies where you’ve worked and your job titles there, along with the organizations’ addresses. I believe you really only need the city and state for each employer’s address. By omitting the street address, you end up with a cleaner-looking document.

Now on to the heart of your resume: skills and accomplishments. This is the area where you sell your talents and convince prospective employers that they should interview you. It’s not enough to list what you do – you really need to expand your job description to include the results of your hard work. You want to clearly show the kind of positive results employers can expect if they hire you. Including results can make the difference between a good resume and a great one.

Speaking of results, I strongly urge you to use numbers when describing your accomplishments. Numbers are powerful indicators of your talents. For instance, perhaps as an account executive, you effortlessly juggled 35 accounts at a time. Maybe as a non-profit manager, you wrote grant proposals which generated more than $500,000 in annual support. Reread these sentences without the numbers, and I think you’ll see for yourself the huge difference that numbers can make. You can also include the numbers of years you worked for a company or in a particular type of job. This might look something like, “For more than 20 years, designed innovative brochures, flyers, advertisements, and direct mail pieces for advertising agencies and in-house marketing departments.”

Include your education in a separate section of your resume. If you attended college but did not graduate, you can indicate this by including the total number of college credits you’ve received.

By including these basic resume components, you’ll be one step closer to getting those all-important interviews. Next time, we’ll take a look at what you should never include in your resume.

Monday, November 15, 2010

I recently discovered a children’s book written by Maine author, Amy MacDonald. The title immediately grabbed my attention: Too Much Flapdoodle! Something about this phrase really resonates with me. I looked up the word flapdoodle in the dictionary, and it means pretty much what you would imagine: nonsense; foolish talk. The phrase stuck in my mind, and as I went about the next few days, there were several times when it popped into my consciousness.

Every time I turn on the radio, someone is moaning and groaning about the state of the economy. No improvements will come from focusing on the negative. In fact, this type of reporting is contributing to our problems. Hope is the answer; positive thoughts are the path we should be following. Unemployment is currently something like 9.6%. Folks, this means that 90.4% of people have jobs! I don’t have a job myself, and yet I know there’s plenty to be thankful for. Hyper-focusing on all that’s wrong? Too much flapdoodle!

I was standing in line the other day, waiting to mail a letter, and the woman behind me became very impatient. Now, sure, waiting in line can try one’s patience sometimes. We’ve all felt that kind of frustration. But consider what the outcome is: we post a letter, and within a relatively short amount of time – usually less than a week – our written words travel across the country, all for only 44 cents. The US Postal Service delivers hundreds of millions of messages each day to more than 150 million homes and businesses. That’s quite an achievement, and I for one appreciate their efforts! So the next time you go to mail your cards and packages, don’t gripe about the wait; appreciate the service. Complaining about a few minutes of waiting in line? Too much flapdoodle!

Everyone experiences stresses and strains during their daily lives. Everyone. Rich or poor, single or married, city folk and country dwellers. It’s not what happens to you, though, that determines if you’re happy – it’s how you react to what happens. It’s how you think about what happens. The next time you’re tempted to complain, criticize, or sink into a place of despair or depression, ask yourself this question: Is everything in my life really so bad? Is there anything good in my life I can focus on instead? There has to be something positive – look for it. Look hard. It’s well worth the effort, since it can literally make the difference between a happy life and an unhappy one. Look for the good. Do it every day. Get into the habit of catching yourself when your thoughts are going down a negative path and turn them around. Develop an attitude of gratitude. Otherwise, friends, you won’t be feeling very good. Your naturally buoyant spirit will become mired in your negative thoughts. And you may just find yourself feeling overwhelmed with too much flapdoodle!

Welcome to Mainely Change

Mainely Change is a place for people in transition. Job seekers. Career changers. Dream followers. People who want to live better lives. In other words, just about all of us.

Here I will share tips for finding the job of your dreams, navigating life changes -- both great and small -- and adding more creative expression and joy to your everyday life.

Rave Reviews for Elizabeth

By job-seeker Laura D.:Attention to detail, careful wordsmithing, and a strong marketing background are the tools Beth applied to my resume and cover letter, giving them both punch and clarity. Her gift for brainstorming provides a wealth of choices from words to formats. By the end of our session, I felt the final product really represented me at my best. Working with Beth is a joy.

By job-seeker Elaine F.:Beth has a positive attitude, and her knowledge of writing and expertise in resumes has been of great assistance to me.

By job-seeker Risa:Beth is great at brainstorming ideas on a topic of choice. For me, it was where to look for jobs that interest me. After working with Beth, I have a great resume and I learned how to write a top-notch letter of interest.

By former colleague & client Mary Ann:Beth is a talented and skilled professional writer. Beth and I were colleagues at Publishers Clearing House. In addition to writing persuasive sales copy, she was valued for coming up with creative interactive games and other innovative components that were included in the company's direct mail packages. She led a design team to create mailings that increased revenue. Most recently I have hired Beth as a freelance writer for DaVita. She is exceptional. Her ability to take complex medical topics and write informative articles at a level that the general population can understand showcases her aptitude and writing versatility. Beth is able to capture the tone and voice of any client, stay true to brand, and turn around work quickly without sacrificing quality. I highly recommend Beth for concept work and copywriting.

About Elizabeth

Beth is a creative Mainer, constant dreamer, retired writer, passionate beader, positive thinker, and cancer survivor. "I am a woman who feels blessed to live in the great state of Maine. I enjoy being creative in many ways: making bracelets, taking pictures, creating unique greeting cards, making monoprints, and much more."